By the numbers: Update on OT11 and an updated Stat Pack (CORRECTED)

Posted Thu, May 31st, 2012 10:20 am by Kedar Bhatia

This is another post in an ongoing series analyzing statistical trends at the Court. For a more complete look at the statistics that we collect on the Court, you can find all of our up-to-date charts and graphs here.

Pace of Grants. The Court is well under its normal pace of grants for the current Term. There are currently 15 petitions granted for OT12, plus one case held over from OT11, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.. By the same point in past years, the Court had granted 28 cases (for OT08), 29 cases (for OT09), 24 cases (for OT10), and 19 cases (for OT11). As Tom has mentioned during recent live blogs, Court watchers expect the Justices to significantly increase their pace of grants as the Term wraps up over the next month.

Pace of Opinions. The Court’s pace of opinions has been far more rapid. The Court has decided 58 total merits cases, more than in any year during the Roberts Court except OT08, when it decided 59 cases by the same point, and OT09, when it equaled the current pace with 58 cases decided.

Justice Agreement. With nearly 60 merits opinions released, we can begin to see the traditional Justice agreement patterns. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito share the highest rate of agreement on cases in full, in part, or in judgment only (96.5%), while the pairs of Justices Scalia and Thomas (94.8%) and Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Thomas (93.0%) follow closely. Justice Kennedy most frequently agrees with Chief Justice Roberts, 89.3% of the time. The Justices with the lowest agreement are Justices Scalia and Ginsburg (60.3%) and Justices Thomas and Ginsburg (60.3%).

Advocates. Elite members of the Supreme Court bar have had a good year. Paul Clement leads all advocates in private practice with nine appearances, including appearances in cases such as Perry v. Perez, Arizona v. United States, and three times during the Affordable Care Act cases. Carter Phillips had the second-highest tally with five arguments, matching his impressive tally from last year and leaving him tied with Clement for the greatest number of appearances over the past two Terms. Gregory Garre argued four times during OT11, Patricia Millett argued three times, and several lawyers argued twice. Below you can see a table of all advocates outside of the Solicitor General’s office who argued two or more times during the current Term.

Name

Appearances

Paul D. Clement

9

Carter G. Phillips

5

Gregory G. Garre

4

Patricia A. Millett

3

John J. Bursch

2

Jeffrey L. Fisher

2

David C. Frederick

2

Thomas C. Goldstein

2

John C. Neiman, Jr.

2

Scott L. Nelson

2

Aaron M. Panner

2

Charles A. Rothfeld

2

Bryan A. Stevenson

2

Seth P. Waxman

2

Within the Office of the Solicitor General, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli leads the pack with nine arguments. Deputy Solicitors General Michael Dreeben and Edwin Kneedler argued four times each, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart argued three times, and Principal Deputy Solicitor General Sri Srinivasan stepped up to the podium on three separate occasions as well. Several Assistants to the Solicitor General appeared three times: Curtis Gannon, Eric Miller, Nicole Saharsky, and Anthony Yang.

You can find a complete list of the advocates who argued two or more times during the Term, including advocates from the Office of the Solicitor General, on page 11 of our latest Stat Pack or here.

Stat Pack. We have once again expanded our Stat Pack and included several new charts. This edition reflects all opinions and orders released to date. You can find it here.

Corrected June 1 at 10:00am: There have been corrections to the following sections: Circuit Scorecard, Frequency in the Majority, and Voting Alignment. There was a typographical error on the Advocates page that has been fixed. The PDFs above have been updated to reflect these changes.

You can also find all of our regularly updated statistics by clicking on the “Statistics” button on the top bar or by clicking here.

Merits Case Pages and Archives

On Monday, the justices met for their September 25 conference. The justices removed Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project and Trump v. Hawaii from the court's October sitting. We expect orders from this conference on Thursday. The October 2017 term will begin on Monday, October 2. The calendar for the October sitting is available on the court's website.

Major Cases

Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project(1) Whether respondents’ challenge to the temporary suspension of entry of aliens abroad under Section 2(c) of Executive Order No. 13,780 is justiciable; (2) whether Section 2(c)’s temporary suspension of entry violates the Establishment Clause; (3) whether the global injunction, which rests on alleged injury to a single individual plaintiff, is impermissibly overbroad; and (4) whether the challenges to Section 2(c) became moot on June 14, 2017.

Gill v. Whitford(1) Whether the district court violated Vieth v. Jubelirer when it held that it had the authority to entertain a statewide challenge to Wisconsin’s redistricting plan, instead of requiring a district-by-district analysis; (2) whether the district court violated Vieth when it held that Wisconsin’s redistricting plan was an impermissible partisan gerrymander, even though it was undisputed that the plan complies with traditional redistricting principles; (3) whether the district court violated Vieth by adopting a watered-down version of the partisan-gerrymandering test employed by the plurality in Davis v. Bandemer; (4) whether the defendants are entitled, at a minimum, to present additional evidence showing that they would have prevailed under the district court’s test, which the court announced only after the record had closed; and (5) whether partisan-gerrymandering claims are justiciable.

Carpenter v. United StatesWhether the warrantless seizure and search of historical cellphone records revealing the location and movements of a cellphone user over the course of 127 days is permitted by the Fourth Amendment.

Conference of September 25, 2017

Collins v. Virginia Whether the Fourth Amendment's automobile exception permits a police officer, uninvited and without a warrant, to enter private property, approach a house and search a vehicle parked a few feet from the house.

Butka v. Sessions Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit erred in this case by holding that it had no jurisdiction to review the denial of a motion to reopen by the Board of Immigration Appeals, where the review sought was limited to assessing the legal framework upon which the sua sponte request was made.

National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra Whether the free speech clause or the free exercise clause of the First Amendment prohibits California from compelling licensed pro-life centers to post information on how to obtain a state-funded abortion and from compelling unlicensed pro-life centers to disseminate a disclaimer to clients on site and in any print and digital advertising.

On August 16, Judge Jon Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit gave a lecture, “The Supreme Court — Then and Now,” in which he compared the Supreme Court today to the court in October Term 1957, when Newman served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren.